Legal Definitions - comparative nomothetics

Comparative rectitude is a legal principle, now largely obsolete in family law, that allowed a court to grant a divorce or legal separation even when both spouses were found to be at fault for the breakdown of the marriage.

Under this doctrine, the court would compare the degree of culpability of each spouse. If one spouse was significantly less responsible for the marital damage, they could successfully petition for divorce, even if they were not entirely blameless themselves. This principle served to temper the harshness of older divorce laws, which often prevented a divorce if both parties had committed marital misconduct.

• Example 1: Imagine a scenario where Mark discovers his wife, Sarah, has been having an affair. In his anger and hurt, Mark begins to intentionally neglect household chores and refuses to communicate with Sarah for several months. Sarah, in turn, continues her affair. If Mark were to seek a divorce under a system that recognized comparative rectitude, a court might acknowledge that while Mark's neglect and refusal to communicate contributed to the marital breakdown, Sarah's infidelity was a more significant and primary cause. The court could then find Mark to be the "less culpable" party and grant him a divorce, despite his own actions that also harmed the marriage.

• Example 2: Consider a marriage where David is verbally abusive and emotionally manipulative towards his wife, Emily, for many years. Feeling increasingly isolated and desperate, Emily eventually begins to secretly spend excessive amounts of money on credit cards, accumulating significant debt without David's knowledge. If Emily were to petition for divorce, a court applying comparative rectitude might weigh David's long-standing pattern of abuse as a more severe and foundational cause of the marriage's collapse than Emily's reactive financial misconduct. Consequently, Emily could be deemed the less culpable spouse and be granted a divorce, even though her own actions contributed to the marital problems.

Today, the concept of comparative rectitude is rarely applied because most jurisdictions have adopted "no-fault" divorce laws. These modern laws allow couples to divorce based on irreconcilable differences or the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage, without needing to prove fault or assign blame to either spouse.